Can games be "art"?

[The NZA]

..okay, if that's what you want: yeah, shitty shovelware is also art. it's just bad art.

games like SOTC get propped up as the most obvious examples of art, the same way we don't use that chair on top of a dog made of wires at my local university as examples of "fine art" (if we're making such distinctions): they're not that, but they inarguably do fit under the vast umbrella that the term art applies to.

 

 

alternate answer:

 

 

[Mortiis558]

I can follow that games are comprised completely of art. The sketches that get drawn before characters or settings are made, even the finished characters or settings in and of themselves can be art, but once it is put into an interactive world it loses something imo. It's akin to taking a bunch of pantings, and making them talk, do the paintings talking to each other constitute art? Not what subject they are talking about, or what paintings are involved, just the fact they are talking.

 

Now I will say I see that games can be art. I get it now, I am arguging now more so you people can give me good justification in case others try and say it to me.

[The NZA]

well...if we're agreeing that paintings, music, movies, and literature can be art, again it's where we take elements from all of them, and combine it with interactivity, that the definition gets shaky for you.

 

let's pretend there was no actual gameplay in MGS4, or Heavy Rain (insert your joke here). as a cinematic tale, you'd (presumably) say they fit into art, but when i can affect certain actions - even though, like movies/lit/etc there's a finite story/outcome, and while the best this medium does is try to make me feel as though anything can happen, but it's all part of the show - something in adding this to the experience, though all the prior elements you agreed upon are still present...you say art stops at this point. fuck im so high.

 

so does your definition vary based on level of interactivity? if i had a PS9 and played it with my mind, would that be more fitting?

[Mortiis558]

Well for me that where Eberts biggest fault about gaming being art is.

To paraphrase his point: because games require input from a player in order to move forward through their narratives, player actions necessarily subvert authorial intent. Therefore, the purity of an artist's vision can never be manifested through the medium of a video game

Which is utterly wrong, as you are playing the artists vision. Their intent is for you to move through the game in such and such fashion. There are multitudes of restraints that for most games prevent you from moving forward unless it is through a precise series of steps or actions. But I don't need to argue that point, we all understand where it is wrong.

 

My problem all originates from my definition of what I classify art as. Video Games fit neither definition, some "art" doesn't fit the definition either. But it is hard to argue that something comprised completely of art can not be art. Honestly I can't, so therefore I have to conclude games are art. I still don't consider books or movies to be art either. Even a book that is nothing but pictures of artwork isnt art.

 

I don't know whether it is the intent behind the game being made, the amount of interactivity with the art, or what, but it just doesn't fall into the "art" category. Creative yes, innovative, sure, beautiful, at times, but still not art.

 

edited for grammar and spelling

[Reverend Jax]

I would say art is in the artist's (or artistic team's) motivations and intentions. In broad terms, something is art if the creator(s) is/are trying to say something, not just anything, about something. In this sense, art is not just painting or sculpting, but also writing and music and film and dance, and yes, video games. But not all painting, sculpting, writing, music, dance and video games. I would not call the FreeCreditReport.com band songs art, but I woudld say that Bob Dylan's Desolation Row and Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit and Bad Religion's American Jesus are art. I would not call E.T. for the NES art, but I wouand all Braid and Portal and Ocarina of Time art.

[the division of joy]

They say art should have no function other than to be art, by that token, the Myst games are definitely art as they fail on the premise of being games.

[Mortiis558]

I think Myst would be on the top of my own list of Games as Art. I know you were insulting it, but I loved it for the very thing you hold against it.

[Iambaytor]

I can follow that games are comprised completely of art. The sketches that get drawn before characters or settings are made, even the finished characters or settings in and of themselves can be art, but once it is put into an interactive world it loses something imo. It's akin to taking a bunch of pantings, and making them talk, do the paintings talking to each other constitute art? Not what subject they are talking about, or what paintings are involved, just the fact they are talking.

 

I say good sir, have you not born witness to those newfangled moving picture shows? Why I hear they have whole art museums dedicated to such things and that one more prized among them is a reel featuring a mongoloid with a power tool running about with intent of bodily harm on some youths of ill repute.

[Mortiis558]

Moving pictures? Dear sir you are mad! And the world must be mad to want to see a man harm the youth of our country! That isn't art, that is POH-NOG-RAFY~!

[Thelogan]

 

Not these guys. I scoff at your notions. SCOFF AT THEM!